Warning: Bluehost's 'Unlimited' isn't quite so unlimited

If you're considering Bluehost as a webhost provider please read this regarding their 'unlimited' hosting as advertised.

Today I received an email from my hosting provider, Bluehost, with the heading "Server Performance Warning for [mysite.com]".  

Reading further, I discovered it was a nice automated email stating "It has come to our attention that your site is using an excessive amount of MySQL resources on your BlueHost.com account. This is causing performance problems on your website as well as for other customers that are on this server. It can cause our servers to crash and cause additional downtime."

On their website they advertise Unlimited hosting space and unlimited databases. As it turns out, if you read the fine print that they kindly sent me in the email, this comes with a catch that they can basically take down your site if it reaches limits that they say degrade server performance.  

To help you out,  these limits are:

• 1000 tables and/or 3 GB on a single account

• 1000 tables and/or 2 GB on a single database    

• 200,000 files

Which were dug out of this legal gibberish from their terms of service:

7.03. BlueHost.com does not set arbitrary limits on the amount of disk space a Subscriber can use for the Subscriber's website, nor does BlueHost.com charge additional fees based on an increased amount of storage used, provided the Subscriber's use of storage complies with these Terms. Please note, however, that the BlueHost.com service is designed to host websites. BlueHost.com does NOT provide unlimited space for online storage, backups, or archiving of electronic files, documents, log files, etc., and any such prohibited use of the Services will result in the termination of Subscriber's account, with or without notice. Accounts with a large number of files (inode count in excess of 200,000) can have an adverse affect on server performance. Similarly, accounts with an excessive number of MySQL/PostgreSQL tables (i.e., in excess of 1000 database tables) or of database size (i.e., in excess of 3GB total MySQL/PostgreSQL usage or 2GB MySQL/PostgreSQL usage in a single databa!
 se) negatively affect the performance of the server. BlueHost.com may request that the number of files/inodes, database tables, or total database usage be reduced to ensure proper performance or may terminate the Subscriber's account, with or without notice.

I've been happy with my service so far, but things like this really tick me off (at least enough to write a post about it).  Technically they've done nothing wrong, and it's good that they have something like this (as I had a few old unused databases that needed cleaned up anyways) but if there are limits, use proper business etiquette and make them easy for someone without a law degree to see!   

I hope that if you're looking for a new hosting provider, you see these limits prior to signing up so you can make a well informed decision.